Question

How to determine steric numbers

Answer 1

NOt sure which lone pairs to incklude and how to determine thisd number

Answer 2

@Tranquility

Answer 3

What's the third number?

"Steric number is the number of atoms bonded to a central atom of a molecule plus the number of lone pairs attached to the central atom."

So essentially, you're just looking at the number of atoms bonded and lone pairs

Answer 4

What about for something like PCI3 , i drew out the lewis structures but I'm not sure what th elone pairs are

Answer 5

i know its bonded to 3 but I'm not sure about the lone pairs

Answer 6

In most cases, the steric number will be 4 because you have a full octet.



Also, if I may... the draw tool is frustrating to use

Answer 7

LP is lone pair

Answer 8

But I drew a double bond instead of the lone pair

Answer 9

I'm confused

Answer 10

If you draw a double bond then you don't have a lone pair on phosphorus anymore and you'd have more than 8 electrons on chlorine.

Chlorine only wants to have one bond because it then achieves a full octet. Besides keeping the octet rule in mind, also consider formal charges

Answer 11

i see

Answer 12

Can you just explain hybridization

Answer 13

like sp, etc etc

Answer 14

how is something sp

Answer 15

So I'd say the easiest way to remember it is that sp has a triple bond so it has 2 sp bonds

An sp3 hybridized atom has 4 bonds
An sp2 hybridized atom has 3 bonds (ie it has a double bond + 2 single bonds)
An sp hybridized bond has 2 bonds (ie it has a triple bond + single bond)